I just don’t believe that they “accidentally” left out the severability clause. I suspect it was intentional, as was calling the fee a penalty, in the mandate section. These are first year law student mistakes. I think the law was designed to self-destruct by the staff in the Senate.
Bill McCollum was the Florida Attorney General when the law was passed. No one will ever accuse him of being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the day after the law was passed he filed suit in Pensacola. He went after two things: the mandate and severability. McCollum spent years in DC as a Congresscritter, so he knows people. I don’t believe in coincidences.
While I agree that Kennedy is the nominal swing vote, I wouldn’t put any money on Sotomayer’s vote. It is a terribly written law, and I’m used to reading the amateur class stuff that was put in the New York State Penal Law by the semi-literates in the state legislature.
]]>– SB the YSS
Hoooot!!
Nor would I, but it’s funny as heck to me that so many rightwingers are anticipating that SCOTUS will affirm Vinson’s ruling and they cite Scalia as being ‘on their side.’
]]>It is a badly written law, I know, I’ve read it. It is poorly constructed and patchwork of things thrown together. The severability clause is missing because no one was in charge of its overall construction. Severability clauses should be part of the boilerplate, and normally are.
As both Judges Hudson and Vinson have said – you can’t call something a tax when it is called a penalty in the law that created it. The mandate doesn’t impose a tax on people, it imposes a penalty, and having the IRS collect it doesn’t change it.
A public option was the only Constitutional way of doing this, and Medicare-for-All would have sailed through all challenges.
Judge Vinson has kicked a lot of abortion protester butt in his court room, and he doesn’t go in for novel legal concepts. He is not someone you want to appear before with Tea Party concepts, but you want him there for First Amendment cases.
Ame, I wouldn’t accept Scalia’s opinion on a parking ticket.
]]>What The Tea Party Could Learn From Justice Scalia Today
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/24/scalia-bachmann/
Ahhhh! It looks like it’s gonna be a fun week, folks!! 🙂
]]>Wikipedia is not helpful on the matter.
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